A land flowing with milk and honey TB Berachot 38

Israel is described as the land flowing with milk and honey 20 times in our Bible! Exodus 3:8, Exodus 3:17, Exodus 13:5, Exodus 33:3, Leviticus 20:24, Numbers 13:27, Numbers 14:8, Numbers 16:13, Numbers 16:14, Deuteronomy 6:3 Deuteronomy 11:9, Deuteronomy 26:9, Deuteronomy 26:15, Deuteronomy 27:3, Deuteronomy 31:20, Joshua 5:6, Jeremiah 11:5, Jeremiah 32:22, Ezekiel 20:6 and Ezekiel 20:15.

The rabbis understood honey to mean date honey (Ketubot 111b); consequently, today’s daf TB Berachot 38 asked the question what blessing do we recite over date honey?

And with regard to blessings, Mar bar Rav Ashi said: Over this date honey one recites: By Whose word all things came to be (שֶׁהַכֹּל נִהְיֶה בִּדְבָרוֹ). What is the reason that one does not recite: Who creates fruit of the tree, as he does over the date itself? Because date honey is not the essence of the fruit, but merely moisture that drips from the ripe fruit. (Sefaria.com translation)

Although this is the right blessing to recite over date honey, is date honey really the meaning of the verse “flowing with milk and honey?” Nogah Hareuvani writes in her book Nature in Our Biblical Heritage:

“And honey? Just as milk is produced in the body of a mammal to nourish its young, so the bee creates honey in his body to supply the hive with food for the next generation. Honey exists in nature uncounted ages before man conceived of raising bees in hives of his contrivance. For centuries, man had helped himself to whatever honey he chanced to find in the wild. Early on, he must have observed that honey was most plentiful in those very areas were cattle produced the most milk. The same pastures, rich in greens for the goat and sheep, also sustain myriads of flowers from which come the raw material used by bees in producing honey.

"Honey is mentioned several times in the Bible, but never is there an implication that it is a cultivated product. Agriculture developed many centuries later and is referred to in the Talmud. The “biblical” bees were wild bees, and the honey they produced was considered public property. Anyone finding honey was free to eat his fill…

“It seems clear that to the prophets, lush wild vegetation, forest, and the resulting ‘flow of milk and honey’ symbolized destruction and desolation. (n.b. The enemies of Israel when conquering the country destroyed the cultivated land and it turned back into wilderness as it was in the time when Israel first entered the land. See: Isaiah 7:21-24, Hosea 2:14, Micah 3:12) On the other hand, in the Pentateuch, ‘the land of milk and honey’ description relates to the bountiful plenty of the land of Israel.” (Pages 11-22)

Bottom line: Whatever kind of honey you eat whether it is bee’s honey or date honey, the appropriate blessing before you eat it is שֶׁהַכֹּל נִהְיֶה בִּדְבָרוֹ.